Wanderlust: Equestrian Nights, Part II

Scorch smiles. "The easiest answer to all those questions is 'You are super hungover'."

Scorch, Wandering Eye

Discord snaps his fingers, conjuring a glass of water and silently offering it to Wandering Eye.

---

Steam Twins, Bubbling Spring

By now, Taffy has drank some of her coffee and is a little more coherent. "So wait. You mean you didn't do the pre order thing? Then where did this come from?" she asks, gesturing with the coffee cup.

Water looks at her for a moment, then points off into the distance. "Look out! It's Nigh-" Soft's elbow to the side shuts her up, and Soft opens the door to the Spa for her. "We just convinced him that we were in a hurry- more of a hurry than everyone else." "Yeah."

Wandering Eye turns to Discord, a bit amazed that he totally did not register the draconequus' presence. "Hmm. Thanks." He takes the glass of water in his telekinetic grip, pleased that at least that works properly. "So... how'd last night go? Other than getting drunk? Must have been some strong stuff... And what's the plan for today?"

"How did last night go?" smirks Scorch, "Let's just say I had a better night than the Nightmare did. Hoof bump!" He brings a fist down at a hoof-bumpable level for Wandering Eye...

Steam Twins, Bubbling Spring

"...I don't know," Taffy admits after a moment. "Between my sister missing, and my neighbor being... Well... I just feel like I'm in over my head," she explains as the Blue Dragon Inn looms into view. "I'll sit in with you, if you want, but after..."

---

Scorch, Wandering Eye

"Well. I can't say one way or another about last night," Discord says with a shrug. "This morning, however, we have things to do and ponies to meet. Specifically, our beloved princess has a new plan, and wants to run it past you. As soon as the twins get here we should be ready to go."

"Well, I think it's because of your sister that you're invited." "Princess Twilight apparently has a 'new plan' regarding all the stuff we've been through, and I'm sure it includes finding your sister."

All

The twins and Spring enter the inn in time to hear Scorch and Wandering talking to Discord.

"Wait, we're leaving ASAP?" Scorch asks in disbelief.

"Yes indeed. Time is of the essence today," Discord says. "And since everyone is here now, I can ask, is everypony ready to go?" he asks to the now collected party.

The twins both see Wandering at the same time, and rush up to hug him. "You're awake!" "What took you so long?" After the hug, Water looks back at Taffy, while Soft turns to Discord. "Actually, Taffy wasn't sure if she wanted to go or not..."

Bubbling Spring bites his tongue as talk turns to Sunglaze; He's reasonably certain that if they ever see her again, she's going to try and kill them. So with pursed lips and dark eyes, he catches Discord's question as they walk through the door, and carefully conjures a thick-bottomed bucket made of ice. "All set." He turns to Taffy and raises an eyebrow. "This is an invitation from a princess. Are you sure you can turn this down?" He rather wants to add because I'm not, but decides against it.

Scorch considers his options. "Well, how are we traveling? Train, right? I'm sure they'd be time before the train leaves, right?"

All

Discord and Taffy regard each other a moment: the pony looking timidly up as the draconequus looks contemplatively down. "... Well. Do you want to come, or not?"

Taffy shifts back and forth a little. "I... I want to find Sunglaze... But I feel like I'm just going to get in the way."

Discord nods understandingly. "Fret not. We'll bring her back," he says.

"Now, as for you," Discord continues, turning towards Scorch. "Trains are nice, but I'm afraid we haven't the time." And with that, Discord snapped his fingers...

And in one moment, Scorch's world was turned topsy-turvy.

Scorch well remembers the periodic need to shed his skin to make room for growth. It's a fairly unpleasant, tedious process, but nothing compared to this. This feels like shedding in reverse in order to shrink, the eternity that shedding usually takes passing in an instant, his entire body itching inside and out, threatening to drive him to insanity...

And in the next moment, Scorch's world rights itself.

Gone is the itching. Gone is the un-shedding sensation or the feeling of shrinkage. He and the rest of the party is left standing around a marble table in an equally marble room - obviously the new palace of Princess Twilight, although this room seems to be in a relatively quiet part of the palace. The Princess herself does not seem to be present, although a tray on the edge of the table sports a pot of coffee and a box of donuts, standing out quite uncharacteristically against the polished interior.

Spring contemplates the inside of his bucket, as though he intends to use it, but finds that the nausea is more and more manageable. He instead floats the bucket towards the rest of his ill-travelled compatriots, while contemplating the irony of the coffee before them. Deep contemplation seemed an excellent alternative to opening his mouth right now. Better safe than sorry.

The twins handle the teleport fairly well, with only a shudder from Water as she shakes off the discomfort. Once they get a look at their surroundings, they flank Wandering instinctively and wait.

After getting over the feeling of... whatever the hell that was, Scorch picks himself from the floor and pours himself a cup of coffee and downs it immediately to calm himself before ruffling his head spikes to regain composure...

Wandering Eye had been about to answer the twins, but he found himself transported - he refused to apply the word "teleportation," a word for the art of unicorn magical travel, to this experience - before he could speak. Still, afterwards he found some comfort in the twins flanking him. He smiled slightly, seemingly not too worse the wear for the draconequus' methods.

As if on cue, several voices can be heard approaching from down the hall.

One of them distinctly belongs to Princess Twilight. "... should still be on schedule, it looks like. Did your shipment ever come in?"

The other voice, although familiar, is not so easily placed. "Yessaroonie Twilight! There's more than you can shake a stick at! And you can shake an awful lot of them."

Twilight chuckles a bit. "Alright then! Anything else you needed to let me know about?"

"Nope! I'll start putting 'em together! See you later Twi!"

And with that, Princess Twilight enters the room... And stares a moment, somewhat surprised.

"... You're... Kind of early! How much of that did you hear, exactly?"

Scorch's head snaps to attention to the word 'early'. He'd be fuming if he wasn't still recovering from the teleportation. Instead he utters the words "We had time?!"

Looking pleasantly surprised at its lack of use, Spring sets his bucket aside--it would be easy enough to mop up later. "I heard about 'a' shipment. A big shipment...of a bunch of small things? Please tell me you're not airdropping parasprites." He takes a moment to reconsider the feasibility of the idea. "Well, actually...huh." As Scorch apparently takes offense at the time of day, Spring turns to him. "Why did you want to spend another minute in that city?" For his two bits, Spring was responsible for property damage and (arguably) murder, and hoped that he never had to return to Phillydelphia again. Not that he expected that wish to be granted, especially with Taffy present.

The twins bow slightly when they see the princess enter, but otherwise allow the others to answer.

"Well, first off, there's my luggage," responds the dragon, "That's still at the inn. Second, we didn't even sign out, we still have our keys." Scorch picks up a doughnut and starts playing around with in the claws on one hand before finishing off his list by mumbling "I didn't even get a chance to tell Violet I was leaving." A bit more aware of what's going on around him now, Scorch gives a small, polite bow to the princess and starts to eat the doughnut...

The princess rubs her face a moment. "Oof. I have got to communicate with him better. I'll be sure he takes you back to get your stuff after. Since he's conveniently not here," she says, sarcasm evident in her voice.

Her horn lights as she grabs a donut and spreads out several sheets of paper in front of her. "Moving on. Let's take a moment and go over what we know first. First off: the attacks were executed by a group known as the Herdmind," she says, rolling a map out on the table. "Those attacks were on Canterlot, Fillydelphia, and Ponyville. An improbable level of coordination was observed, which has been attributed to a collective consciousness: in lay terms, the Herdmind is one single 'mind', which allows them to act with one 'thought'. The purpose of these attakcs, evidently, was the extraction of several important individuals known as 'Dominants'," she continues. Several red flags appear on the map at the appropriate cities.

"Now, I expect there's other reasons at play here, but those aren't yet evident. Moving on to these 'Dominants', they supposedly are able to pull away from the consciousness, and presumably have a finer control over the Herdmind's inherent abilities. We know the names of two, one now deceased." She pauses to glare at Bubbling Spring. "The other still at large. Everyone still with me?"

"Alright then. Based on the presence of one Dominant in Ponyville, and another one in Fillydelphia, I conclude that there must have been one in Canterlot as well: and may still be," she explains. The flag on Canterlot turns gold asnshe narrates. "Moreover, the Herdmind now knows what at least one of you looks like, and will come after you if given the opportunity. Now, my proposal is dangerous. You can refuse if you wish," she says, slowly, choosing words carefully. "Should you accept, however, I am quite confident in it's success." Her gaze sweeps the room, looking each of you in the eye.

"My plan is to send you to Canterlot, using your presence to try and bait out the remaining Dominant, or perhaps someone connected to them."